"I regard light as a material," says artist and lighting designer Brian W. Brush’s whose scintillating architectural installations harness refractive and reflective materials to impart a sense of movement and complexity inspired by parametric design. Whether constructed from anodized aluminum, fiber optic cables, polycarbonate, or a data-driven LED lights, each takes flight from a similar concept. At their foundation is a single, autonomous component that, when duplicated hundreds or thousands of times, produces a complex and dynamic organism all its own. They also begin with a similar goal: to engage individual viewers in a shared experience, whether that be to learn something new, identify with a local landmark, or even interact with the responsive qualities of a piece itself.

“I started recognizing light as a medium in and of itself,” recalls artist Adam Jackson Pollock, whose career in custom lighting design grew out of his early years in photography and stage lighting. Fascinated with the ways light can alter or even create an environment, he says “I realized you could use it to paint emotion and experience into space.” Pursuing the notion that lighting designs can fulfill additional environmental needs, Pollock’s recent projects take responsive design to new levels.